Notifiblog: How Stuff Works Thursday!

​If I had gone into medicine as a calling, I am certain I would have chosen to study the brain. Thus, I can't resist exploring an article on HSW called, "Top 10 Myths About the Brain."

Here are three to confound and maybe fascinate you, too!

Myth: Listening to Mozart makes you smarter. "In the 1950s, an ear, nose and throat doctor named Albert Tomatis (ed. Wikipedia gives his first name as "Alfred") began the trend, claiming success using Mozart's music to help people with speech and auditory disorders. In the 1990s, 36 students in a study at the University of California at Irvine listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata before taking an IQ test. According to Dr. Gordon Shaw, the psychologist in charge of the study, the students' IQ scores went up by about 8 points. The "Mozart effect" was born." A researcher involved in that project later asserted there was never any claim it actually made anyone smarter; it just increased performance on certain spatial-temporal tasks. Even that is questioned today.

Myth: You Can Learn Through Subliminal Messages. "A subliminal message (meaning, below "limen," or our conscious perception threshold) is a message embedded into images or sound meant to penetrate into our subconscious and influence our behavior. The first person to coin the term was James Vicary, a market researcher. In 1957, Vicary stated that he inserted messages into a showing of a movie in New Jersey. The messages, which flashed for 1/3000th of a second, told moviegoers to drink Coca-Cola and eat popcorn." However, Vicary's assertion that sales of Coke and popcorn increased by 18% was a flat-out lie. Another experiment done in Canada over television failed completely. Sorry, you can no longer commit a crime and then tell the judge a suggestion in a song made you do it.

Myth: The Human Brain Is the Biggest Brain. It's not. "The relationship between brain size and intelligence isn't really about the actual weight of the brain; it's about the ratio of brain weight to the entire body weight. For humans, that ratio is about 1-to-50. For most other mammals, it's 1-to-180, and for birds, it's 1-to-220. The brain takes up more weight in a human than it does in other animals." Humans have the most cerebral cortex, and therein is the difference, apparently.

Cheers, eh!

Notifiblog: Saw it on TV, but does it work?

Found a site I need to bookmark: http://www.consumersearch.com/as-seen-on-tv. We get tired of those "As Seen on TV" mail order gadget adverts. But finding out if they really work can be a bit of fun.
Let's look at three:

magicJack is a device that can be plugged into a USB port to provide VoIP type of service. It costs $40 for the harware, then a $20 annual fee keeps the service going. Vonage is a big competitor for magicJack.

Verdict: Works but with limitations.

Pros

• Inexpensive
• Easy to install

Cons

• Poor customer service, technical support
• Call quality depends on Internet service
• Conflicts with other hardware, software
• Computer must be on to receive or place phone calls

"Vince" demonstrates ShamWow! as the ultimate solution for cleaning up large spills and leaks. Sadly, there's no Wikipedia article about ShamWow! that's not embedded in Vince's article. Vince, the demo guy, creeps me out, but what about the product?

Verdict: Works for SOME spills.

Pros

• Works on some spills
• Makes a decent towel
• Washable and reusable

Cons

• Not as absorbent as advertised
• Tends to smear, not absorb spills
• Rough on the skin

I just love the name of this product: The Slanket. It's the sleeved blanket product that actually beat the Snuggie to market. Slanket rules! Or does it?

Verdict: Better than Snuggie but expensive for what it is

Pros

• Comfortable
• Machine washable
• Available in various colors

Cons

• Expensive
• Some complain of backlogged orders
• Not must better than a blanket

See if you can work the word "Slanket" into a sentence today during an ordinary conversation! Extra credit if you use "Slanket" in a work-related meeting!

Notifiblog: Out with the Clutter!

My home is undergoing a huge cleanout. We have too much stuff. Now, I learn I may be at risk for compulsive hoarding. Let's not let that happen, eh!
I read some of the symptoms, and I see myself! I'm not quite there yet:
"They tend to hold onto a large number of items that most people would consider not useful or valuable. For example:

• Junk mail
• Old catalogues and newspapers
• Things that might be useful for making crafts
• Clothes that "might" be worn one day
• Broken things/trash
• "Freebies" or other promotional products picked up"

Yikers! I like to think I'll make craft things out of ...well just never mind: it's going into the recycling bin TODAY! I can craft with what I have when I'm actually sitting down with my trusty glue stick!

True compulsive hoarding is not a joke. It's recognized as a type of OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), but there is no ICD-10 code that I know of for it, yet.

I pledge to organize the true supplies I have (such as yarn and origami paper), and to discard all the catalogues and junk-mail things I keep thinking would make a cool collage someday. It can make a fine collage in the recycling bin, thanks!

(Yes, TODAY!)

Notifiblog POST #100: How Stuff Works Thursday!

I have to love this one: 10 Crazy Examples of Horrible Movie Science.
There is no sound in outer space, Star Wars and Star Trek fans. The only work of television or movie science fiction I've seen thus far that gets it right is the movie Serenity and its related short-lived TV series, Firefly.

Catching someone from a fall from a really big fall isn't really going to help. If you're falling off a New York City skyscraper, even Spider-Man's gentle web won't stop you from bursting like a dropped watermelon hitting the ground. Sorry, Spidey.

I saved HSW's first one for the last: the night sky in the ORIGINAL release of James Cameron's Titanic was noticeably (to an astrophysicist) wrong. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson gleefully pointed out the Rorschach test-like sky to Cameron, who apparently is an insufferable stickler for detail.

Ah, well, as The Handsome One often tells me, "Suspend your disbelief." It IS more fun that way, I'll admit.

Notifiblog: AC power plugs and sockets!

Yes, you read it right. I got curious about the differences amongst electric outlets and plugs around the world. You can't just take your favorite electic lamp anywhere and get it to work, y'know. I have limited blog time today, so I'll let this Wikipedia article do most of the talking.
(from Wikipedia) "When electricity was first introduced into houses, it was primarily used for lighting. At that time, many electricity companies operated a split-tariff system where the cost of electricity for lighting was lower than that for other purposes. This led to portable appliances (such as vacuum cleaners, electric fans, and hair driers) being connected to light bulb sockets using lampholder plugs."

(from Wikipedia) "There are two basic standards for voltage and frequency in the world. One is the North American standard of 120 volts at a frequency of 60 Hz, and the other is the European standard of 220–240 volts at 50 Hz. The differences arose for historical reasons as discussed in the article mains electricity. Usually NEMA type sockets and plugs are used on 60 Hz systems, and CEE and other types are used on 50 Hz systems, but exceptions exist."

Ever wonder why one blade is larger than the other on a polarized plug? "Where the building wiring system defines a "neutral" conductor that is connected to earth, it is an advantage for appliance designers to preserve that distinction. This requires a plug that can only be connected in one way to the socket, so that the energised and neutral conductors are not interchanged. Such "polarized" plugs are not interchangeable with non-polarized sockets. Wiring systems where both circuit conductors have a significant potential with respect to earth do not benefit from polarized plugs."

The rest of the article covers the various size, number and combination of blades and pins--even the distance between blades! There are photos of plugs and sockets from around the world--and some obsolete types, too!

BTW, today is my 99th Notifiblog post since I began posting "worldwide."  :-)

Notifiblog: Return of the Twinkie? Hmm...

I grew up with Hostess snack cakes. Well, sort of. They were a sometimes treat, which is probably what made them so...treat-y. However, it wasn't 'til this weekend, when I was having a tweety conversation with a lady in the UK that I realized we had some dodgy names for our snacks! I had a laugh.
The conversation started quite innocently with a mutual friend's thoughts of having breakfast delivered while he was up very early with his toddler. I thought having a breakfast delivered from the UK to MY house (half the world away) would be a lovely idea. But I was willing to let the others have my black pudding. (Hint: ew!) The other early riser (it was 7AM their time, 11 PM ours) wanted to donate her black pudding to the toddler's dad, too. I told her we'd give him our black puddings and we could have Twinkies! She apparently had a huge laugh at the dodgy-sounding suggestion.

It just went downhill from there. I spent my childhood consuming Twinkies, (gulp) Ding Dongs, and (oh dear) Ho Hos. I'd never thought of it that way!

I loved her reply: "#FILTH" To which I had to respond, "If you think the names are bad, you should see what they do to people's arteries."

Indeed, #FILTH!

In the spirit of transparency, protecting my health is not the primary reason I will avoid partaking of the Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho-Hos and Donettes phenomena: Hostess Brands (now known as "Old HB") killed over 18 thousand jobs and blamed a bakers' strike. Not entirely true. J2 does not like that kind of business...what's the opposite of ethic?

Notifiblog: Why Don't They Disguise the Brink's Truck?

If there were ever a reason NOT to display your corporate identity all over your delivery trucks, wouldn't you think it would be because just from your company's name everyone knows what's inside? And especially if what's inside is usually CASH?
I saw a Brink's truck this morning. Duh...why do they splash the name all over the trucks if they really want to show how secure they are?

Brink's, which has been in business since 1859, famously transported the Hope Diamond from an auction house to its buyer's home--year not stated in the Wikipedia article.

I also often wonder why other high-demand-oft-stolen merchandise is hauled in trucks that blatantly advertise what's inside. Some commercial outlets do it right. Have you ever seen a Nordstrom delivery truck? They're out there, but they're identifiable only by a certain code in the truck ID. I think that's smart!

Notifiblog: How Stuff Works Thursday! (On Tuesday!) (Why Not, Eh!)

I'm taking this Friday off, so today is, in effect, my Thursday. So, I'm going to treat it like a Thursday all the way! This week: How Fireworks Work!
According to the www.howstuffworks.com article referenced for this posting, aerial fireworks represent two types of pyrotechnic activity:

"Firecrackers have been around for hundreds of years. They consist of either black powder (also known as gunpowder) or flash powder in a tight paper tube with a fuse to light the powder. Black powder, discussed briefly in How Rocket Engines Work, contains charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate. A composition used in a firecracker might have aluminum instead of or in addition to charcoal in order to brighten the explosion.

"Sparklers are very different from firecrackers. A sparkler burns over a long period of time (up to a minute) and produces extremely bright and showery light. Sparklers are often referred to as "snowball sparklers" because of the ball of sparks that surrounds the burning portion of the sparkler. If you look at Patent #3,862,865: Sparkler composition, you can see that a sparkler consists of several different compounds:

• A fuel
• An oxidizer
• Iron or steel powder
• A binder

"An aerial firework is normally formed as a shell that consists of four parts:

• Container - Usually pasted paper and string formed into a cylinder
• Stars - Spheres, cubes or cylinders of a sparkler-like composition
• Bursting charge - Firecracker-like charge at the center of the shell
• Fuse - Provides a time delay so the shell explodes at the right altitude"

­"T­he pattern that an aerial shell paints in the sky depends on the arrangement of star pellets inside the shell. For example, if the pellets are equally spaced in a circle, with black powder inside the circle, you will see an aerial display of smaller star explosions equally spaced in a circle. To create a specific figure in the sky, you create an outline of the figure in star pellets, surround them as a group with a layer of break charge to separate them simultaneously from the rest of the contents of the shell, and place explosive charges inside those pellets to blow them outward into a large figure."

Couldn't have said it better myself. There is more to the article, of course. There is a lot to appreciate about the work that goes into creating an aerial fireworks show. Way to go Chinese people who invented gunpowder, eh!

Bonus: The Japanese word for fireworks is hanabi (hana: flower + hi [or bi for a pleasant sound]: fire). Hanabiko (花火子) is the full name of the world-famous signing gorilla we call Koko--whose birthday is right on July 4th.

Notifiblog: Happy Canada Day!

​Once again, 1 July has arrived: it's Canada Day!

It's been a busy Monday, so I'm happy someone has posted an article on WikiHow called, "7 Tips on How to Celebrate Canada Day!"

The Google Doodle on www.google.ca has been updated to reflect Canadians' public national image. It's a Parliamentary building, I believe. Not a Canadian beer, sorry.

In 1927, the US had a plan to invade Canada! I think it had little to do with harrassing British subjects, and a LOT to do with when Prohibition in Canada was repealed. I'm glad the plan was dropped by 1928.

You may be Candian! Check out this video to see! It's 100% True! (Even with the exchange rate.)

So...Happy Canada D'Eh!